APPLES AND APPLETHWAITE PLUNKIT
Bobby found the little grape basket in which he kept his fishing-tackle
on a beam in the woodshed. Clinton was an old fashioned town, and few
people as yet owned automobiles. There were, therefore, not many
garages, but plenty of rambling woodsheds and barns. When all the barns
are done away with and there are nothing but garages left, boys will
lose half their chance for fun!
The Blakes' shed, and the stable and barn adjoining, offered a splendid
play-place in all sorts of weather for Bobby and his friends. There
were a pair of horses and a cow in the stable, too. Michael Mulcahey was
the coachman, and he liked boys just as much as Meena, the Swedish girl,
disliked them. This fact was ever a bone of contention between the old
coachman and Meena. Otherwise Michael and Meena might have gotten
married and gone to housekeeping in the little cottage at the back of
the Blake property, facing on the rear street.
"He ban _in_-courage them boys in their voolishness," accused Meena.
"Me, I don't vant no boys aroundt. Michael, he vould haf the house
overrun mit boys. So ve don't get married."
Just now Michael was not at the barn. He had driven Mrs. Blake to the
neighboring city in the light carriage, on her shopping trip. Bobby and
Fred trailed through the back gate and down the lane, leaving the gate
open. Later Meena had to run out and chase the chickens out of the
tomato patch. Then she tied the red bandage in a harder knot and
prepared to show herself a martyr to her mistress when it came supper
time.
Back of the Blake house the narrow street cut into a road that led right
out into the country. There were plenty of houses lining this road at
first, but gradually the distance between them became greater.
Likewise the dust in the road grew deeper. It was not a way attractive
to automobiles, and it had not been oiled as were many of the Clinton
streets.
"Let's take off our shoes and stockings and save our shoes," suggested
Fred. "We'll go in swimmin' before we come back, so we'll be all
clean."
"Let's," agreed Bobby, and they sat down at once and accomplished the
act in a few moments. They stuffed their stockings into their shoes,
tied the laces together and slung them about their necks. The shoes
knocked against their shoulder-blades as they trotted on, their bare
feet scuffing up little clouds of dust.
"We raise a lot of dust--just like the Overland Limited," said Bobby,
looking back. Bobby had once travelled west with his parents, and they
had come back by way of Denver. He had never forgotten his long ride in
that fast train.
"Go ahead!" declared Fred. "_I'm_ the Empire State. You got to get up
some speed to beat _me_."
A minute later two balloons of dust could have been seen hovering over
the road to the creek--the boys were shrouded in them. They ran,
scuffing, as hard as they could run, and kicked up an enormous cloud of
dust.
They stopped at the stile leading into Plunkits' lower pasture. The
boys from town never went near the farmhouse. Plunkits' was a big farm,
and this end of it was not cultivated. If they went near the truck
patches, somebody would be sure to chase them. There always had been a
feud between the Clinton boys and the Plunkit family.
But there wasn't a swimming hole anywhere around the town--or a fishing
stream--like the creek. The Plunkits really had no right to drive
anybody away from the stream, for the farm bordered only one side of it.
The city boys could go across and fish from the other side all they
wanted to. That had been long since decided.
The best swimming hole was below the boundary of the Plunkit land,
anyway, but this path across the pasture was a short-cut.
"If we see that Applethwaite Plunkit and his dog, what are we going to
do?" asked Fred, as they trotted along the sidehill path, white with
road dust from head to foot.
"Nothing. But if he sees us, that's another matter," chuckled Bobby.
"All right. You're the smart one. But what will we do?"
"Run, if he isn't too near," said Bobby, practically.
"And suppose he _is_ too near?"
"Guess we'll have to run just the same," returned Bobby, thoughtfully.
"He can lick either of us, Fred. And with the dog he can lick us both
at once. That dog is real savage. He's made him so, Ap Plunkit has."
"I bet we could pitch on Ap and fix him," said the combative Fred.
"Now, you just keep out of trouble if you can, Fred Martin," advised
Bobby, cautiously. "You know--if you get into a fight, you'll catch it
when you get home. Your father will be sure to hear of it."
"Well! what am I going to do if they pitch on me?" demanded Fred.
"'Turn the other cheek,'" chuckled Bobby, "like Miss Rainey, our
Sunday-school teacher, says."
"Huh! that's all right. A fellow's got two cheeks; but if you get a
punch in the nose, you can't turn your other nose--you haven't one! So
now!" declared the very literal and pugnacious Fred.
Just then they came close enough to the creek to see the willows along
the hank. At the corner of the Plunkit fence there stood a big apple
tree--a "summer sweetnin'" as the country folk called it.
"Scubbity-_yow_!" ejaculated Fred Martin. "See those apples? And
they're _yellow_!"
"Some of them are," admitted his chum.
"More'n half of them, I declare. Say! we're going to have a feast, Bob.
Come on!"
Bobby grabbed him by the sleeve. "Hold on! don't go so fast, Fred,"
exclaimed the brown-eyed boy. "Those apples aren't ours."
"But they're going to be," returned Fred, grinning.
"Now, you don't mean that," said Bobby, seriously. "You know you
mustn't climb that tree, or pick apples on _this_ side of the fence.
Here's where we crawl through. Now! lots of the limbs overhang this
other side of the fence--and there's a lot of ripe apples on the
ground."
"Pshaw! the Plunkits would never know," complained Fred. But he
followed Bobby through the break in the pasture fence, just the same.
Bobby was just as much fun as any boy in Clinton; Fred knew _that_. Yet
Bobby was forever "seeing consequences." He kept them both out of
trouble very often by seeing ahead. Whereas Fred, left to himself, never
would stop to think at all!
They had come two miles and a half. Where were there ever two boys who
could walk as far as that without "walking up an appetite"?
"My goodness me, Fred!" exclaimed Bobby, as they came to the clear-water
creek in which the pebbles and sand were plainly visible on the bottom.
"My goodness me, Fred! aren't you dreadfully hungry?"
"I could eat the label off this tomato can--just like a goat!" declared
Fred, shaking the can which held the fishworms before his chum's face
and eyes.
"Then let's eat before we bait a hook," suggested Bobby. "I don't care
if Meena _does_ have the toothache. She makes de-lic-ious sandwiches."
"Scubbity-_yow_! I should say she did," agreed Fred, sitting down
cross-legged on the grass under a spreading oak that here broke the
hedge of willows bordering the stream.
The boys soon had their mouths full. It was not yet noon, but the sun
was high in the heavens, and it twinkled down at them between the
interlacing leaves and twigs of the oak. A little breeze played with
the blades of grass. A thrush sang his heart out, swinging on a cane
across the stream. A locust whirred like a policeman's rattle in a tall
poplar a little way down the creek. In the distance a crow cawed lazily
as he winged his way across a field, early plowed for grain.
"This is a fine place," said Bobby. "I just love the country."
"This is the way it is at Rockledge," declared Fred, proudly.
"How do you know? You've never been there."
"But Sam Tillinghast, who comes to see us once in a while, went to
Rockledge before he went to college. He says Rockledge is right up on a
bluff overlooking Monatook Lake, and that a fellow can have more fun
there than a box of monkeys!"
"I never had a box of monkeys," said Bobby, grinning, and with his mouth
full.
"That's all right. I wish you were going," said Fred, wagging his head.
"Don't you suppose that's what's the matter at your house--what your pa
and your mother are thinking about?"
"No," said Bobby, wagging his head, sadly. "I guess it ain't nothing as
good as going to boarding school. You see, they look so solemn when I
catch them staring at me."
"Maybe you've done something and they are thinking of punishing you?"
suggested Fred.
"No. I haven't done a thing. I really haven't! I'd thought of that,
and I just went back over everything I've done this vacation, and I
can't think of a thing," decided Bobby, reflectively.
"Well, if it's something bad, you'll find out soon enough what it is,"
said Fred, playing a regular Job's comforter.
"And if it is something _good_, I suppose they'll worry me to death--or
pretty near--too, eh!"
"Mebbe if we could find a Gypsy woman she'd tell your fortune and you'd
know," said Fred.
"Yah! I don't believe in such stuff," declared Bobby. "You remember
that old woman that came around selling baskets last spring and wheedled
that ten cents out of you? She only told you that you were going to
cross water and have a great change on the other side."
"Well, she knew!" exclaimed Fred, earnestly. "Didn't I fall into the
canal the very next day and have to swim across it; and you brought me a
change of clothing from home? Huh! I guess that old woman hit it about
right," declared the red-haired boy, with conviction.
Bobby chuckled a long time over this. It amused him a great deal. He
and his chum had eaten up nearly the whole of Meena's luncheon--and she
had not been niggardly with it, either.
"I'm going to have some of those apples," declared Fred. "Come on."
"All right," agreed Bobby, who had no compunctions about taking the
apples on this side of the fence. He believed that the Plunkits had no
claim upon the fruit that overhung somebody else's land! That is the
usual belief of small boys in the country, whether it is legally
correct, or not.
When the chums bit into the yellow apples on the ground they found that
almost every one had been seized by a prior claimant. Fred bit right
through a soft, white worm!
"Oh! oh! oh!" exclaimed the red-haired boy, and ran down to the creek's
edge to rinse his mouth. "Isn't that awful?"
"Don't bite blindly," advised Bobby, chuckling. "You were too eager."
"I'm going to have a decent apple," declared Fred, coming back.
He jumped up, seized one of the lower branches of the apple tree, and
scrambled up to a seat on a strong limb. Several tempting looking
"summer sweetnin's" were within his reach. He seized one, looked it all
over for blemishes and, finding none, set his teeth in it.
"How is it?" asked Bobby, biting carefully around a wormy apple.
"Fine," returned his chum, and tossed Bobby an apple he plucked.
At that very moment a voice hailed them from a distance, and a dog
barked. "There's that Applethwaite Plunkit and his dog," gasped Bobby.
"Sure it is," said Fred, turning his gaze upon the lanky boy of twelve,
or so, and the big black and brown dog that were running together across
the pasture.
"Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Bobby, somewhat worried.